


Limits

by Janekfan



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Abandonment, Caretaking, Delirium, Emotional Constipation, Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Infection, Injury, Jaskier recites old timey poetry when he has a fever, M/M, Sickfic, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janekfan/pseuds/Janekfan
Summary: Early in their travels together, Geralt tests his new companions limits. As all could guess, it does not go well.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 20
Kudos: 611





	Limits

**Author's Note:**

> Could be read as prerelationship, but mostly it's just friendship :) read as you like!

"I'll leave you behind." 

It never failed to keep him moving and the witcher wondered briefly why a human would put himself through so much for just a song. It never failed to make him wonder why he even cared at all that he doggedly followed. 

"You really are insufferable." A weary sigh, short tune solemn under his nimble fingers. "It's a wonder I put up with you at all." 

"Hm."

The bard had stopped asking for rest days ago, pace slower every mile, stumbling over his own feet and more quiet than Geralt had ever heard him before.

Small blessing, he supposed.

Before, Jaskier had complained loudly and often. It was so hot. His feet ached. Couldn't they stop for just a moment? It would be faster if I--

"Don't touch Roach."

Uneven, the hard soles of Jaskier's boots scuffed in the leaf litter, his palms found trees and he leaned heavily on the rough bark, shoving off from one to the next. The strings from the lute on his back resonated softly with each collision. 

"Geralt."

"Hm."

"Can't. I can't." 

"Then I'll leave you." He didn't look back, not even when he heard knees collide with the loam. "I'll be at the inn." Roach nickered, restless to be on their way, and he clicked his tongue. The bard would catch up soon enough. 

He'd had a bath, a meal, was currently sipping ale at the corner table. Jaskier had yet to arrive and Geralt shoved the feeling of guilt rising in his throat down deep, swallowing the dregs to keep it there. This was no life for a bard. No, he needed fine clothes, fancy balls, adoration and attention; all things a witcher had no business attempting to provide. No. A night outside would prove him right and they would part ways here and now. Never mind his sweet-spun stories and lack of fear in his eyes. 

No. This was best for the little lark. He knew no better. Geralt would teach him his limits. 

The door creaked as it opened in front of the weight of his stumbling companion. Jaskier limped heavily, bowed low with the burden of his damned lute and almost to the table when his foot twisted beneath him and he fell. Geralt didn't catch him, instead stood to swing the instrument over one broad shoulder, hefting the bard over the other and making for the stairs.

He deposited Jaskier none too gently on the single bed, setting the lute in a corner before lighting the lantern with a quick sign. 

Jaskier lay where he'd been put, trembling delicately, breath measured and a sweat breaking over exposed pale skin. Geralt sighed, irritated at the dramatic behavior. 

"Take off your boots." 

"N'no." He swiped a hand over his face, covering his eyes, mouth twisted up and tight. "Jus' want to sleep." Wracked with a full body shiver, he curled up into his doublet. Geralt frowned. It was a pleasant temperature with the window open to let in cool night air. 

"Come. You'll rest better." He grabbed his heel roughly, intending to start the process himself, dropping it like a brand when Jaskier yelped, choked off in a sob and Geralt blanched when tears slipped down his temples. 

He'd never in the short time they'd traveled together seen the man cry. 

Gently, more than he really knew how to be, Geralt placed a hand over his forehead. Warm, overly so, and Jaskier's chest hitched with another shuddering gasp. 

"Come, now." Again. Forcing calm into his voice. Forcing kindness he didn't know how to process past clenched teeth. He kept his hand in place, used his other one to undo the buckles at his knee and ease the worn boot from his calf, over his sock. 

Geralt wrinkled his nose at the keen smell of fresh blood and infection. Jaskier's foot was swollen, blistered. Both new and old in various stages of healing. 

He'd passed his limit long ago, long, long ago, yet kept going. And for what? 

"Ah, little bardling. I see now." With the same care, he removed the other, taking a moment to examine the leather; the interior stained rusty and dark. They weren't bad for travel, just old and ill-fitted from time. Fine for regular travel. Poor for following a senseless witcher trying to prove a useless point. "These wounds must be cleaned." Geralt's fingers were tangled in short damp hair, moving unconsciously. "It will hurt. But it has to be done."

Too much trust pooled in that cornflower blue. How is it that fever addled and exhausted, Jaskier still kept such faith?

A jug of warm water and vinegar in a washing tub, along with soft cloths, salve, rolls of clean, white bandages, steaming water and powdered willow bark, feverfew, for tea. 

A lighter coin purse. 

"Bard." In the time he'd been gone, Jaskier had fallen into restless sleep. Geralt could hear his rabbit-quick heartbeat, see the pulse beating heavy in the ivory column of his throat. A sour scent overwhelmed the human's usual smell and he breathed deep the steam from the mug he brewed. "Bard." He tried again, this time accompanied by a firm shake. Jaskier's eyes opened far too slowly, clouded and bright with fever. He licked dry lips and spoke, bare more than a whisper, voice fading out and back in on the verse of an old poem.

"When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies." 

Had the poison entered his veins? Geralt levered him upright, taking care with his bloodied feet, to lean him against the pillows and hold the cup to his lips. Urged him to drink, too pleased when he took several deep swallows.

"When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death." Listless and small. He was becoming worse so rapidly Geralt felt unfamiliar panic fill his chest. He urged another sip, setting aside the tea. "And Innocence is...closing up his eyes." Blue rolled back under fluttering lashes as his feet slipped beneath the warm water, shot open with a hiss, fighting weakly against the witcher's firm hold. 

"Shh, it must be done, songbird." Able to be restrained with one hand, Geralt cupped his hot, hot face, thumbed away a tear. Held him there until his struggling ceased and the room was filled with the soft sound of his panting. "Over soon now, little sparrow." The water was stained pink with his blood when he finished, Jaskier half awake and still as Geralt wicked away the moisture before applying the salve and deftly wrapping everything up securely. He tucked blankets around him, passing a hand over his eyes. "Sleep."

"Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light..."

"Jaskier?" Vacant, his eyes gazed at the lantern. "Is it too bright?" Geralt moved between, unnerved by the distance, by how he stared through him.

"And the sunlight clasps the earth." Geralt smoothed the backs of his fingers over a flushed cheek. If anything, the fever felt higher than before. "And the moonbeams kiss the sea." He plied him with more tea, wrung out a cloth in a clean basin and placed it over his eyes, hopeful that it would quiet his poetic murmuring. Only the bard could find a way to annoy him while in the throes of illness. Could he not be quiet for one damnable moment? 

The next day passed slowly with Jaskier drifting in and out of sleep on the soft rhythms of old rhymes. Geralt could leave him, he knew. Hire a maid to tend him until he was well again. Send him back to Oxenfurt where he'd be safe and this could never happen again.

Jaskier stirred awake when Geralt was in the middle of changing the bandages and examining the healing skin between his toes, on his heels, the soles of his feet. Each mark a reminder of every time he'd ignored the bard's request for a break.

"G'ralt," slurred and slow, his swift tongue made clumsy with illness. "Are y'leaving?" 

"Yes." He failed to mention when and knew the bard thought he'd be left behind. And Geralt let him think so, looking away when Jaskier would not. Wringing the cloth again and smoothing it over his forehead. "Sleep." So he wouldn't have to look into that unguarded face.

In Geralt's experience, fever seemed to become worse before it turned for the better. Jaskier was no exception, laid out shivering and writhing, sweat soaking his shirt, streaming from his face, down his neck when Geralt forced the tea down his throat, cursing when all it seemed to do is choke him. He was confused, scared of things only he could see and in his thrashing new blood began to spill. Geralt, already on the bed, wrapped him up in his arms and held him tightly. He preferred the poetry to whatever these fits were.

"Be still!" The command shocked them both, their hearts beating in rapid sync, and Jaskier looked up into the witcher's strange eyes, slightly dazed and breath heaving. "Be still, little lark." Rough, calloused hands smoothed back bangs matted with sweat, took note of the climbing temperature and reached for the tea. "Drink, songbird. Just a sip." It was more a command than a request, but the bard did as instructed, managing more than half before falling quiet against Geralt's broad chest. Not asleep; no, just quiet. Cradling Jaskier carefully, he laid them down, pressing the smaller body close and willing health into him.

"Not that I'm opposed, as I am dreadfully chilled, but, may I ask?" Thready, but clear. The bard's humor both irritating and welcome at once. Geralt didn't untangle them right away, instead tucking the blanket around them both and checking that the fever was gone. He sighed. Suddenly tired. 

"Sleep."

The buckling of his leathers woke Jaskier and the human sat up with a yawn, knuckling the dreaming from his eyes.

"Are we headed out?" It was unspoken, what happened in these last few days. Geralt didn't know what to make of it or how he felt, the uncomfortable tightness taking up room behind his lungs made it hard to breathe.

"Hm." 

"Wait. Wait." Jaskier struggled quick as he could upright in the bed, swinging his bandaged feet over the edge and bracing himself to stand. "I'll be ready--"

"No." The way Jaskier's flushed face fell shouldn't have affected him. Not like it did. Not like this. "You need to stay. Rest." 

"I mean to come with you." The sharp intake of breath when toes met cool wood gave Geralt pause. The man was in no condition to follow. Why did he insist, this burr in his side?

"The room is paid up for two days more." 

"I mean to follow, Geralt." Firm. Demanding. He would not be ignored.

"I can't let you."

"You do not get to tell me what I can and cannot do, Geralt of Rivia." He stood, shaky, paling with pain and the breathlessness increased. The urge to shield the bard from any more hurt warred from the guilt of knowing it had been his fault from the very beginning.

"You're human."

"Yes."

"Frail."

"Well, I'd hardly agree--"

"Why didn't you leave? When you knew I was--" halted by Jaskier's traitorous knees buckling. This time. Geralt caught him, took the weight off his injured feet. "I'm."

"You're not a monster!" Slender fingers hooked into his armor, grip tight and unyielding. "I would know." Silence, for a time. "I know, Geralt." 

"Stay." 

"I won't." It was petulant and betrayed his young age, but the witcher tucked him in tight after making sure the bandages were clean.

"Stay." He shoved the mug into his hands. "Drink. Sleep." Left. 

Jaskier fretted, flexing his toes and wincing only slightly. They throbbed, but not as before. He only remembered glimpses of clouded memory. But Geralt had been there. He could have left at any time. Abandoned him here to recover on his own. The squeal of old wood stole his attention and it was with great relief when cornflower blue met wild buttercup.

"We'll go slow, to break them in." With care, the witcher laid a pair of butter-soft leather boots in his lap.

"Ah, finally. A pace I can agree with." Reverently, he stroked the new buckles. "Now, hand me my lute, would you? I feel a new lyric." His smile was one of the sweetest Geralt had ever known. 

The knot behind his breastbone loosed.


End file.
